Blogging

I’ve posted previously about moving to Hugo as a publishing platform for this blog, this post is a bit more about how I’m managing the publishing using GitLab’s CI/CD Pipelines. Firstly, I need to mention that I’m using three different repositories for my code base, and why. The three repositories are: definit-hugo - this contains the hugo site configuration definit-content - this contains the site content - markdown files, images etc definit-theme - this contains the VMware Clarity-based theme I use for my site definit-content and definit-theme are git submodules in the definit-hugo project, mapped into the /content and /themes folders respectively.

When I started my blog back in May 2007 (12 years ago!) I was running Wordpress, then switched to DotNetNuke, then BlogEngine, then finally back to Wordpress - which I’ve used since 2010. Today I’ve cut over to a new architecture based on Hugo and hosted on AWS using a combination of Route53, Cloudfront and S3. Why the change? If it ain’t broke… You may well ask why I’ve made the move, or you may not…I’m going to tell you anyway…

A couple of days ago I saw a tweet from Cody De Arkland showing his new tweaked VMware Clarity based theme on his website. Staying up until 3am to get the brisket on, so what do I do? Work on tuning up https://t.co/YDiFkGIKLY with some better @VMwareClarity styling! Check out the differences below! Subtle changes but I think it's a lot better. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/6sYnuBahwI — Cody De Arkland (@Codydearkland) June 17, 2018 Cody has gone down the route of using Hugo and AWS, which I respect, but just seems like too much work for me at the moment!

So…this is a frustrated sort of post. As you are most likely to already know, the new data protection laws (GDPR) are coming into effect on the 25th May 2018. I must emphasise that I am not an expert on GDPR, this post is my layman’s conclusion for my specific circumstances. I run this blog as an exercise to help others, provide information and as a hobby. There is a lot of speculation around how this will affect bloggers, and a lot of panic and mis-information too.

I’ve been very fortunate to be able to go to VMworld Europe for the past 3 years, mainly thanks to the vExpert program and the availability of the blogger pass. This year I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get to Barcelona because of work, so I thought I’d apply for a VMworld US blogger pass - I’m very excited to have been given one! As with previous years, I'll be blogging at least once a day with my thoughts and any useful info I've gleaned - I definitely don't want to take the pass for granted!

This is not my normal sort of post - don’t worry, normal service will resume shortly. I read Christian’s comments on the vCommunity - or lack of it - yesterday and although some things resonate with me, and a lot of other people, I don’t quite agree. I want to be clear this is a response to Christian and not an argument, I respect Christian as someone who does contribute to the vCommunity.

It was with great honor both Sam and I were awarded vExpert 2014 (my first and Sam’s second award!) we are both proud to be listed alongside so many others in the vExpert programme. You can view the announcement and the full list here - http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2014/04/vexpert-2014-announcement.html

After attending the “Future of IT” Google hangout in September, I was asked to give a quick summary on what 2014 may hold. So without further ado.. I believe in 2014, we will see an increased demand for - and usage of - hybrid clouds, especially among SMEs who are trying to avoid large investment on private clouds to accommodate high demand, short term projects. End user computing will play an ever larger role, with BYOD becoming even more viable for businesses, including those with strict data controlled environments.

If you’ve been here before, you may have noticed a couple of changes – the theme and name of this blog for example, and hopefully you’ve been redirected to a new URL! There are a couple of reasons for the changes, all of which are aimed at increasing the presence and visitor numbers on this site: Branding. Whether I like it or not, “McGeown” is not easy to spell or remember so I wanted to move away from it as an identity.

Wordle.net is a great little site that’s been around for ages – but it gives quite a unique insight into the content of your blog – just shove the RSS feed in and out comes a nice word cloud. I found it interesting to compare this to the Tag cloud generated from how I tagged my posts – for example Exchange is the predominant word in the Wordle.net cloud – but not in the tag cloud.